UNFPA Rwanda’s Innovation Accelerator seeks to focus on Adolescents and Youth issues, and more specifically, on youth-friendly services, and youth participation and leadership.

More than 60 per cent of Rwandans are under 25 years old, while 41 per cent are under 15 years. This highlights the need to prioritize young people in development interventions.

Progress on increasing access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services for young people has been slow, and the time is overdue to explore new approaches.

Adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) services are still limited in scope and coverage when compared to the needs: only 14 per cent of health facilities are currently offering adolescent and youth friendly services (AYFS). It is assumed that an even lower percentage of these are actually operational.

There is also a need for effective advocacy to remove legal and policy barriers for young people to access services. Through the Innovation Accelerator, UNFPA in Rwanda wishes to strengthen our work to promote the sexual and reproductive health of young people, through generating innovative ideas that emerge from the grassroots level.

Four winning solutions

• Girl District provides sexuality education to teenage girls aged 13-18 years via a comic book series. The stories are sourced from young girls themselves through community-based clubs.
• Tubiganire meaning 'Can we talk', is a TV drama concept focused on stimulating open and honest communication about sexuality and reproductive health in families.
• Tantine is a website and mobile application that provides sexual and reproductive health information and counselling to young people. Tantine means 'Auntie'; it builds on the traditional way of knowledge transfer to the next generation of girls, from their aunts.
• Umbrella is a digital platform targeting young women. Its main features are cycle tracking and health information for pregnant women. 

More about Rwanda iAccelerator.

Read about our other Innovation Accelerators:
Kenya iAccelerator: the I.AM campaign
Tanzania iAccelerator: Amua
Uganda iAccelerator: Up Accelerator